For ghost kitchens and virtual brands
Food cost software for ghost kitchens
Smooth Ops is food cost software built for ghost kitchens and delivery-only brands: cost every plate with the packaging included, see what each commission tier actually leaves behind, and catch supplier price creep across every virtual brand in the kitchen, with a Square integration and QuickBooks P&L import so the numbers tie back to the books. Built by operators with 14+ years of operations across 20+ locations. Try it for 30 days free, no credit card.
Why delivery-only margins are harder than they look
A ghost kitchen strips the restaurant down to the parts that cost money: food, packaging, and a platform that charges for every order it brings. There is no patio, no wine list, and no counter traffic to smooth over sloppy plate math.
- The commission comes off the top of every single order. A dine-in restaurant pays commission on some orders; a delivery-only kitchen pays it on all of them. DoorDash publishes tiers of 15%, 25%, and 30% (as of July 2026), and at the top tier nearly a third of the ticket is gone before you buy a single ingredient.
- Packaging is an ingredient you cannot skip. Every order needs a container, a bag, a tamper seal, cutlery, and sauce cups, and none of it comes back. A few cents of drift on a clamshell multiplies across every order that leaves the kitchen.
- Virtual brands share one walk-in. When three menus pull from the same chicken, rice, and produce, nobody can say which brand is making money unless every plate on every menu is costed separately.
- Price creep hides in the invoice stack. Supplier prices move one line at a time while app menu prices stay frozen. With profit typically landing between 8% and 15% of revenue (Qamarero, as of July 2026), three points of quiet food cost drift can take a huge bite out of what is left.
- The app owns the customer, you own the costs. You cannot upsell a dessert at the table or read the room on a price change. The only lever you fully control is knowing exactly what every item costs to send out, and pulling that lever fast when the numbers move.
The delivery-only numbers that set your targets
These are the verified benchmarks we watch for ghost kitchens. Full links are in the sources and notes at the bottom of the page.
15% to 30%
Published DoorDash delivery commission rates: 15% on the Basic plan, 25% on Plus, and 30% on Premier. Pickup orders are 6% on every plan.
Source: DoorDash for Merchants pricing page, as of July 2026.
28% to 32%
Where food cost should land as a share of revenue in a ghost kitchen, before packaging and the platform commission take their cut.
Source: Qamarero, as of July 2026.
15%
Average ghost kitchen profit margin, inside a typical range of 10% to 30%. Qamarero puts profit after all expenses, delivery fees included, at 8% to 15%.
Source: 7shifts, as of July 2026.
Read together: if food takes 28% to 32% of the ticket and the platform takes 15% to 30%, well over half of a delivery order can be spoken for before labor, packaging, rent, or utilities. That is why the net lands in the single digits to mid-teens for most operators, and why per-plate costing is not optional in a delivery-only kitchen.
What a $16.00 delivery plate actually leaves behind
Here is the anatomy of one delivery order at a $16.00 menu price, an example figure for a delivery-only entree. The commission uses the published DoorDash Premier rate; the food cost sits at 30%, the middle of the verified 28% to 32% benchmark; the packaging line is an example figure. Your own numbers will differ, which is the point of costing your own menu.
| Line item | Basis | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Food on the plate | Example figure: costed at a 30% food cost, the middle of the verified 28% to 32% band (Qamarero, as of July 2026) | $4.80 |
| Packaging: clamshell, bag, sauce cups, cutlery kit, tamper seal | Example figure: about $0.75 per order at wholesale case prices | $0.75 |
| Delivery commission | 30% of the $16.00 subtotal at the published DoorDash Premier rate, as of July 2026 | $4.80 |
| Total cost per order | $10.35 |
At the $16.00 menu price, that order carries $10.35 of food, packaging, and commission, which leaves $5.65, or 35.3% of the ticket, before labor, kitchen rent, and utilities. The commission tier moves the answer more than any ingredient: at the 25% Plus rate the commission is $4.00 and $6.45 is left (40.3% of the ticket), and at the 15% Basic rate it is $2.40, leaving $8.05 (50.3%). Take labor at 20% to 25% of revenue (Qamarero, as of July 2026) out of the Premier scenario and you are at roughly 10% to 15% before rent and utilities, which is exactly why verified net margins land between 8% and 15%. Want to run a plate with your own numbers first? The free food cost calculator costs a recipe and suggests a target menu price in a couple of minutes, and the Food Cost module keeps it current from there.
A month with two virtual brands (an illustrative example, not a real customer)
Picture a two-person kitchen running a wings brand and a smash burger brand out of one rented commercial space, doing about 1,500 delivery orders a month at a $16.00 average ticket, or $24,000 in monthly sales on the Premier plan. Using the worked example above, the month carries about $7,200 of food, $1,125 of packaging, and $7,200 of commission, leaving $8,475 before labor, rent, and utilities. The operator starts snapping every supplier invoice into Smooth Ops and costing both menus separately, even where the brands share the same walk-in.
Two things surface in the first month. First, a chicken price increase has pushed the wings plate from $4.80 to $5.28 of food cost, a 33% food cost that nobody caught because the app menu never changed; at 700 wing orders a month that is $336 a month, about $4,032 a year, quietly gone. Second, Sourcing shows the same sauce cups 6 cents cheaper at a vendor the kitchen already buys from, worth $90 a month across 1,500 orders. The wings plate gets repriced on the app, the cups get switched, and both brands finally have a real per-plate margin instead of a blended guess. This scenario is illustrative, built from the worked example above, and does not describe a real customer. Ready to see your own numbers? Start now: 30 days free, no credit card.
One app, nine modules, start with one
Smooth Ops is one back-office app with nine modules: Food Cost, Invoices, Sourcing, Payments, Cash, Inventory, Tips, and Tasks. Each module is $25 a month per location, everything together is $99 a month per location, and Sourcing comes free with Food Cost and Invoices. Month to month, no contract. Start with one module, add more later. If you run on Square, sales, cash, and inventory import automatically, and the QuickBooks P&L import ties plate margins back to the books. Here is how the modules most ghost kitchens start with map to a delivery-only line.
Food Cost: every plate costed, packaging and commission in view
Build each item once per brand, including the clamshell, bag, and cutlery, and watch its cost update as supplier prices move. Model what each commission tier leaves at each menu price. Details on the Food Cost module page.
Invoices: snap the stack between order rushes
Photograph every supplier invoice from the prep table. The AI reads each line and flags any price that moved since last time, so app menus get repriced before the margin is gone. More on the Invoices module page.
Inventory: one walk-in, several menus
Count what the brands actually share and reconcile purchases against orders sent out, so shrink and prep waste stop hiding between menus. See the Inventory module page.
Tasks: the checklist that keeps a dark kitchen tight
Opening, closing, and cleaning lists with clear check-offs, so a small crew running multiple brands does not drop the routine work between rushes. More on the Tasks module page.
On Square?
The Square integration imports sales, cash, and inventory automatically. There is a whole page on food cost software for Square restaurants if that is your setup.
Running another concept on the side? There are guides for food trucks, pizza shops, coffee shops, bakeries, boba shops, bars, and juice bars too.
Ghost kitchen food cost, answered
What is a good food cost percentage for a ghost kitchen?+
Aim for 28% to 32% of revenue (Qamarero, as of July 2026). Ghost kitchens need to hold that line harder than dine-in restaurants because delivery commission of 15% to 30% also comes out of every order, so a plate that drifts to a 38% food cost can erase the whole margin. Cost every item at the prices you actually pay and recheck whenever a supplier price moves.
How much commission do delivery apps take from restaurants?+
DoorDash publishes its delivery commission rates: 15% on the Basic plan, 25% on Plus, and 30% on Premier, with pickup orders at 6% across all plans (DoorDash, as of July 2026). Qamarero reports that third-party platforms like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub charge 15% to 30% commission per order (as of July 2026). The tier you choose moves your per-order economics more than almost any ingredient decision.
How do I price a delivery-only menu item?+
Work backward from everything that comes off the ticket. On a $16.00 plate with a 30% commission, $4.80 goes to the platform before you buy a single ingredient, so cost the full plate including containers, bag, cutlery, and sauce cups, then check that food, packaging, and commission together still leave enough for labor and rent. In our worked example, a $16.00 plate at a 30% food cost, $0.75 of packaging, and a 30% commission leaves $5.65 before labor and overhead.
Are ghost kitchens profitable?+
They can be, on thinner margins than the hype suggested. Qamarero puts typical profit at 8% to 15% of revenue after all expenses including delivery fees, and 7shifts reports margins of 10% to 30% with an average of 15% (both as of July 2026). The operators who reach the top of those ranges are the ones who track food cost, packaging, and commission per item instead of guessing.
Should delivery app menu prices be higher than pickup prices?+
Many delivery-only operators list higher prices on the apps to offset commission, and DoorDash prices pickup at a 6% commission versus 15% to 30% for delivery (as of July 2026). Before you mark anything up, know the true cost of each item including packaging, then model what each commission tier leaves at each price point. Pricing blind is how a best seller quietly becomes your least profitable item.
Sources and notes
Every external number on this page comes from the sources below and is reviewed quarterly. Figures in the worked plate example that are marked as example figures are illustrative assumptions, not sourced statistics. If anything here is out of date, tell us at team@smoothopsapp.com and we will fix it.
- DoorDash delivery commission rates are 15% for the Basic plan, 25% for the Plus plan, and 30% for the Premier plan, with pickup orders at 6% across all plans. Source: DoorDash for Merchants pricing page, as of July 2026.
- Ghost kitchen food costs should hover around 28% to 32% of revenue, third-party platforms charge 15% to 30% commission per order, labor typically runs 20% to 25%, and profit after all expenses including delivery fees typically lands between 8% and 15% of revenue. Source: Qamarero, Are Ghost Kitchens Profitable, as of July 2026.
- Profit margins for ghost kitchens run between 10% and 30%, with an average of 15%. Source: 7shifts, Ghost Kitchen Profitability, as of July 2026.
- The $16.00 menu price, the 30% food cost within the benchmark band, and the $0.75 per-order packaging figure in the worked example are illustrative assumptions, not sourced statistics, and the two-brand scenario is built from them, not from a real customer.
Cost every order before the apps take their cut
Start with one module at $25 a month per location. Month to month, no contract.
30 days free, no credit card